The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez, and Happy Thanksgiving. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the day's news; President Bush's surprise trip to Iraq, plus an update on the rebuilding effort there; a report from California on a dark chapter in history for some Mexican Americans; the head of the CDC warns of a dangerous flu season; a look at the resurgence of jazz singers; and a Thanksgiving essay by Roger Rosenblatt.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: President Bush made a super-secret trip to Iraq today to celebrate Thanksgiving with U.S. troops. He flew all night from Crawford, Texas, landed in Baghdad under cover of darkness, and stunned 600 army troops as they assembled for a turkey dinner. ( Cheers and applause )

RAY SUAREZ: The soldiers at Baghdad International Airport could not have guessed who was coming to Thanksgiving dinner. The U.S. Administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, was one of the few in on the secret.

L. PAUL BREMER: It says here I'm supposed to read the president's Thanksgiving proclamation, but I thought the deal was it was the most senior person who reads it. Is that you?

SPOKESMAN: I don't know. Maybe we ought to get somebody else.

L. PAUL BREMER: Well, I wonder, let's see if we've got anybody more senior here who can read the president's Thanksgiving speech. Is there anybody back there who is more senior than us? ( Cheers and applause )

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere. Thanks for inviting me to dinner.

RAY SUAREZ: Later, the president, wearing a military jacket, manned the steam tables serving up mashed potatoes and relaxing with the troops. The president had slipped away from his Texas ranch where aides had said he would spend Thanksgiving with his family.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Where are you from in Texas?

SOLDIER: Midland, Texas, sir.

RAY SUAREZ: Elsewhere in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers and coalition officials began the day with a run through the former republican guard palace. And members of the 82nd airborne played football to take their minds off being away from home. The field was at Camp Red Falcon, a former Iraqi military compound.

PFC KEITH WILSON, U.S. Army: It's not my first Thanksgiving away from my family, but you know under these conditions, I miss them, I miss my family, but it ain't too bad. I mean, it could be worse.

RAY SUAREZ: In Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, members of the Fourth Infantry Division celebrated the holiday in the deposed leader's palace.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Happy Thanksgiving. Hi, how are you?

RAY SUAREZ: Troops in Afghanistan had some Washington visitors, too. New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed dined on turkey and pumpkin pie at Bagram Air Force Base just north of Kabul. The two senators promised Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States remains committed to rebuilding his war-torn country. And the former first lady sent a warning to Taliban rebels who have stepped up attacks against U.S. soldiers and aid workers in recent weeks.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: The message should go out that the Taliban terrorists are fighting a losing battle. They cannot win because they cannot intimidate and undermine the resolve of the Afghan people to have a future free of this kind of terrorism.

RAY SUAREZ: Senators Clinton and Reed will travel to Iraq later this weekend to visit troops there. And back in Iraq, there was also more violence today. West of Baghdad, near Abu Ghraib, a U.S. military convoy came under attack on the main highway. Two flatbed military trucks were abandoned with their cabs blazing fiercely, as townspeople converged to loot tires and other vehicle parts. To the north in Mosul, unidentified gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi police sergeant. And late last night, the Italian mission in Baghdad was hit by rocket-propelled grenades, damaging the building but causing no injuries. A cease-fire along the 700-mile border between India and Pakistan held fast today despite new violence in Kashmir. There, Indian security forces killed ten suspected Muslim rebels in skirmishes in border villages. And in the northern Indian city of Srinigar, a grenade attack killed a storekeeper and wounded nine shoppers in a crowded market. India and Pakistan announced their first formal cease-fire in 14 years yesterday. They have fought each other twice for control of Kashmir. Separatists said they would press their fight against India despite the cease-fire. Israel's prime minister said today his country must cede some occupied land in order to have peace with Palestinians. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also warned Palestinians to moderate their demands or else Israel will keep some of the West Bank and Gaza. At a news conference he told Palestinians, "you do not have unlimited time. There is a limit to our patience." Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath rebuked Sharon's statement, saying, "this is an unprecedented, arrogant statement. It is rude and it lacks any vision." Here at home, Americans across the country celebrated Thanksgiving in the traditional ways. The annual Macy's Parade proceeded through New York City, led by Jake the helium-stuffed turkey. Thousands lined the street to watch the floats, marching bands, and balloons. Parades in other cities, including Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago drew hundreds of thousands of spectators. Charities, shelters, and food kitchens, like this one in Washington, D.C., Dished out holiday meals to the needy and homeless. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to: Guess who came to dinner; rebuilding Iraq; hard times for some Mexican Americans; the new flu season; young jazz singers; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS GUESS WHO CAME TO DINNER?

RAY SUAREZ: Now, the president's Thanksgiving visit to Iraq. Here are excerpts from his remarks to 600 very surprised soldiers gathered for dinner in the bob hope dining hall at Baghdad's airport.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I bring a message on behalf of America: We thank you for your service, we're proud of you, and America stands solidly behind you. (Cheers and applause) You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq, so that we don't have to face them in our own country. You're defeating Saddam's henchmen, so that the people of Iraq can live in peace and freedom. You're engaged in a difficult mission. Those who attack our coalition forces and kill innocent Iraqis are testing our will. They hope we will run. We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins. (Cheers and applause) I have a message for the Iraqi people: You have an opportunity to seize the moment and rebuild your great country, based on human dignity and freedom. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone forever. (Cheers and applause) The United States and our coalition will help you... help you build a peaceful country so that your children can have a bright future. We'll help you find and bring to justice the people who terrorized you for years and are still killing innocent Iraqis. We will stay until the job is done. (Cheers and applause) Each one of you has answered a great call, participating in an historic moment in world history. You live by a code of honor, of service to your nation, with the safety and the security of your fellow citizens. Our military is full of the finest people on the face of the earth. I'm proud to be your commander in chief. I bring greetings from America. May God bless you all. (Cheers and applause) May God bless America.

RAY SUAREZ: For more, we're joined by Christian Caryl of "Newsweek" Magazine. I spoke with him earlier today from Baghdad.

RAY SUAREZ: Christian Caryl, welcome back to the program. Did anyone even have an inkling, were there any rumors that an impromptu presidential visit was possible?

CHRISTIAN CARYL: No. There were absolutely no rumors at all, and I think everyone here was caught completely by surprise, to be perfectly honest.

RAY SUAREZ: Were there any signs in Iraq on the ground that things were more buttoned down, that there was a more heightened security stance in order to get the president safely in and out of the country?

CHRISTIAN CARYL: Nothing at all. I would say there was no inkling of anything like that. What we did see today was a big tent being set up at the airport for the festivities that we knew were going to be taking place. We received press notices that Ambassador Bremer, the head of the coalition provisional authority, would be eating with the troops -- nothing out of the ordinary. It was really quite a stroke by the Bush administration.

RAY SUAREZ: Once word started to get out that he had been to the country and probably had already gone by the time people started to hear about it, were there any interesting reactions, either from rank and file Iraqis or from American forces in Iraq?

CHRISTIAN CARYL: Oh, you know, it's very hard to gauge that. I think this was extremely heartening to the American troops on the ground I think they got something out of the visit even if 600 were present for the dinner with President Bush. But you know a lot of the troops that I've spoken to hear feel a bit deserted, a bit forgotten, so in that respect I think it was a big help for the president and soldiers on the ground.

RAY SUAREZ: After the president left Baghdad, was it just another night in the Iraqi capital, were there sounds of gunfire, mortars being fired, that sort of thing?

CHRISTIAN CARYL: Well there were a couple of mortar impacts shortly after we heard about the president's visit. We were all watching some of the first images of his visit, and then off in the distance we heard the boom, boom, boom of mortars, which, to be quite honest, has become such a routine occurrence here in Iraq that nobody really -- here in Baghdad that nobody really pays much attention. So absolutely, it was really a remarkable evening in that respect.

RAY SUAREZ: I understand you have just come back to the capital from the capital of the north, you might say, Mosul, what's going on up there?

CHRISTIAN CARYL: Well, Mosul is a very interesting place. I would say what's going on there is a very, very noticeable upsurge of violence against coalition forces-- and very important-- because it doesn't always make the headlines-- against their Iraqis allies on the ground, like the Iraqi police, Iraqi human rights activists, judges, people like that. And this upsurge in violence is all the more remarkable, because until recently, Mosul was one of the most peaceful parts of Iraq. The commanding general of the 101st Airborne division, Major General David H. Petraeus, earned lot of kudos there earlier this year for his very, very deft handling of the political and military situation on the ground in that part of Iraq, and for a long time we didn't hear anything at all about attacks there, but in the past, I would say, about a month and a half, there has been a very, very noticeable up-tick in violence there, which has now culminated in the death of 17 American soldiers in that collision of helicopters that we all heard a lot about a couple of weeks ago. This is the single biggest day of losses in the conflict so far. And then while I was in Mosul with photographer Gary Knight, we just arrived and we heard about the killing of the two American soldiers in their car in a traffic jam in a subsequent attack on their body by a bunch of enraged people apparently.

RAY SUAREZ: Christian Caryl from "Newsweek" Magazine, thanks for being with us.

CHRISTIAN CARYL: Thank you.

FOCUS - REBUILDING IRAQ

RAY SUAREZ: Now, another view of Iraq. Yesterday, Margaret Warner spoke to one of the Bush administration's key reconstruction officials who's also been in Iraq recently.

MARGARET WARNER: The U.S. Congress recently authorized another $ 18 billion to rebuild Iraq on top of more than $ 2 billion already spent. One of the lead players in this massive reconstruction program is the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID. AID awards overseas contracts to restore schools, roads, bridges, health facilities, electricity, water, sanitation, and telephone service, among other things. It's also helping Iraqis establish local governments. The man in charge of AID, Administrator Andrew Natsios, has just returned from a trip to Iraq. And welcome back to the program.

ANDREW NATSIOS: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: The last time you were there was in June. You were just there last week. What's the more striking differences you see?

ANDREW NATSIOS: There was a lot of street crime in June because Saddam had opened all of the prisons, street criminals, and they were running around doing what criminals do. And most of them had been re-arrested and put back in prison now so there is not as much as street crime as there was and the Iraqis told me that for them security has actually improved dramatically in the last three or four months. The second thing that's different is we were only beginning to ratchet up the scale of the reconstruction effort in June and we didn't have a lot to show -- now the reconstruction effort's on a massive escape. We just finished with the U.S. Military reconstructing 2,000 schools. AID did 1,600, U.S. Military did three or four hundred. And because of that, school attendance has dramatically creased over what it was last year which means there are fewer kids on the streets and it's much better in a reconstruction setting to have kids in school rather than on the streets.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you something about the schools, because "Newsweek" Magazine went and looked at five of the schools that have been on the completed list and you may have read this...

ANDREW NATSIOS: I did.

MARGARET WARNER: ...Story found that there was trash all over, there weren't enough desks for the students, there weren't enough textbooks, and that the story was, well, Bechtel had been in charge, Bechtel Corporation, but it had been subbed down, down, down, to a subcontractor that really cut corners. I guess my question is, how confident are you that that $ 1,600 figure... $ 1,600 school figure is really for real?

ANDREW NATSIOS: We actually have inspectors go in. Bechtel does one set of inspections and then we have a second set done by the Corps of Engineers that we have hired to oversee Bechtel's quality control and the inspectors go in. If they see anything that is different than what was contracted for, they don't pay the contractors. In fact, none of the contractors have been paid yet, so if you don't do your work, you don't get paid, that's number one. Number two, if you want to get paid you have to go back and fix the things that were broken. We told that to "Newsweek." "Newsweek" chose not report it, which I thought was it a little unfortunate.

MARGARET WARNER: But as you know, there is criticism, for instance Refugees International put out something last week saying you all are under such pressure from Washington to show results and understandably so.

ANDREW NATSIOS: We are, yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Obviously. That it's become something of a numbers game and that so many corners are being cut, that in fact, it's hard to know whether to trust the figures...

ANDREW NATSIOS: Well I have to say I know Refugees International very well. They don't actually have a presence on the ground, and I think some of the reporting is a little sensationalist and, I think, inaccurate. This is a massive effort. It's the most massive reconstruction effort the U.S. Government and AID have been engaged in since the Marshal Plan. We have never spent this much money in one country at the same time. So there is an issue about scale and management but we knew this when we started and so we planned for quality control measures that would ensure that standards were kept up. And if you go to the port of Um Qasar, one of our big efforts was to open the biggest port in the country-- it's a modern port now. First time in 20 years, it's fully functioning and being maintained properly. The schools are another big success. If you go around the country, ask the parents. Many parents would not allow their kids to go to school because the bathrooms weren't functioning. There was no running water, there was no electricity in the schools, the ceilings were falling in, not from the war, but because of bad maintenance and because no money was being invested in them, and now kids are going back to school. What counts is the data we're getting from the Ministry of Education about how many more kids are in school. We're now focusing on the health system. The health care system was in terrible condition because the annual budget for the entire health care system for the whole $ 10 million a year under Saddam. It's now $ 200 million a year. And we're putting a lot of money into rebuilding infrastructure that has been allowed to deteriorate for 28 years.

MARGARET WARNER: How are you doing on power and electricity? What's the latest there?

ANDREW NATSIOS: The latest is... that's the hardest thing, because it these are huge project to get the electrical power plants reconstructed after years of very poor maintenance. And so we have the electrical power up the first week in October to what it had been before the conflict, but that's not sufficient. Our problem is not electricity right now, because we're not in the peak load, which is in the summertime when it goes up to 125, 140 degrees a day. I mean, I was there in June. I had never been to a place so hot. People get very, very upset if the water doesn't run and of course electricity affects the water system, the sewer system, the electric lights. If those services don't function and it's 140 degrees out, people get very upset.

MARGARET WARNER: But, for instance, do people in Baghdad have power 24 hours a day? How many hours a day?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Baghdad has less power than it had before because it always had 24 hours, because it's the capital city and Saddam poured all of his funding and resources into the capital to avoid political unrest. The Shia itself, which is 60 percent of the country, is like a different country. There are no public services. In Basra, the second-largest city in the country, they had three hours of electrical power a day for the last 15 years. They now have 23 hours of electrical power a day. We're not discriminating, but the way in which -- there has been some sabotage in the transmission lines and we're fixing those now. This was sabotaged last may. We have to fix the lines so that all of the power is regularized across the country to make the system more reliable. By next June we hope to have electrical power go from 4,300 megawatts to 6,300, which will be more sufficient to get us through next summer. So there is a plan in place that our contractors are implementing and we're on schedule to achieve those results.

MARGARET WARNER: You said a few minutes ago that the port of Um Qasar had been built, it's like a modern port. And as you know some members of both the Iraqi governing council and council in particular have said, "that's part of the problem, that the Americans come in and they want to do it to this gold-plated standard, and that they could get a lot more for the money if they spread it around more, let Iraqis do more of the work and perhaps it wouldn't meet AID contract specifications, but things would work." Is there something to that? Is there a sort of tension here between the American desire to do things to a certain standard and the need to get all the stuff up and running in some fashion?

ANDREW NATSIOS: I think the distinction is, we want to create a standard so that a year from now "Newsweek" won't go in or Lehrer Report and say everything has collapsed. You fixed it only for a year. We don't want that to happen. The president keeps saying to us we want this to work over the longer term. We want the public services to improve for the Iraqi people. That's the plan. This is not a gold-plated standard. We are not improving any of the services from what they were 25 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, Iraq had the finest education system in the entire Arab world and the finest health care system. And since the Iran-Iraq war that began in '82-'83 everything has slid down to oblivion, and we're trying to restore what existed before.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you about the impact of the violence. To what degree does the security situation slow down what you're trying to do and add to the cost?

ANDREW NATSIOS: It's clearly adding to the cost, because we're having to put security measures in place and security firms, and that does cost something, but it's not enormous. Is it slowing down the efforts? In the area... in the greater Baghdad area, which was the center of Baathist control, it has restrained our ability to provide these services and work with the Iraqis. In the southern area, which is the most discriminated-against, poorest area of the country, actually there is so much support locally for what we're doing they are protecting us from problems. And we have a lot of public support in the Kurdish area as well, so 80 percent of the country actually the relief effort and the reconstruction effort it is at a very, very high level of energy and the volume is very impressive. But we even have programs now in Fallujah, which is one of the most insecure areas, and we have them in Tikrit. Some people can't imagine we're able to do that but we are. They're not huge, and we have told the sheiks and city councilors, "if you want to us help you, you have to bring some security on your own through the local police department, because we're not military force," and the NGO's that work with us, the contractors, the U.N. agencies need security in order to help you reconstruct your country.

MARGARET WARNER: How is this work of trying to build up these local councils going?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Some of the work we're doing restoration of public services and they are important but the most important thing we're doing is not restoration of services. It is what I call "transforming reconstruction," which means transforming one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world into a democratic society, which I'm very optimistic about for a couple of reasons. One is this is an urbanized population, and democracy works better in urbanized settings. 70 percent of the people live in cities. And two, there is a high level of very well-educated people in Iraq-- this is more... it's not really like the developing world. It's more like Eastern Europe. It's more like Poland or Bulgaria after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And depending on how the elites respond, this country can be a very functional... could look like Poland in six or eight years, which would be a really good thing from our perspective. I told the Iraqis that. It's up to them to decide whether or not they want to have an accelerated level of democratic development, move to a private market economy with free elections, protection of human rights and civil liberties or not. The program that's most transformative that we're working on is the creation of these local councils of newly elected town and city councils who are providing public service as we make small grants to them and we're training them in how you actually administer public services, write a budget, you have to hold a public hearing, you respond to public complaints and act as our city councils would in the United States or Europe.

MARGARET WARNER: Andrew Natsios, thanks.

ANDREW NATSIOS: Thank you very much.

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Hard times for some Mexican Americans; the flu season arrives; new jazz singers; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS PAINFUL PAST

RAY SUAREZ: Next, the little- known story of a mass expulsion from the United States during the Depression, and the new efforts to address it. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angels reports.

JEFFREY KAYE: Maria Ofelia Acosta is a 72-year-old grandmother of three, who lives a tranquil, suburban life of retirement in a Los Angels suburb. But as a young child, Acosta says she and her family were victims of a little-known and little-told chapter in American history: The mass deportation of people, many of them U.S. Citizens, to Mexico. Acosta says her family's odyssey began in June 1932. That's when her father, a legal U.S. Resident from Mexico, was approached by federal authorities. He was one of many Latino laborers on a U.S. public works project in northern California.

MARIA OFELIA ACOSTA: He thought maybe they're going to give us a better job. And then they said, "we decided to send you to Mexico, so line up and come one by one and get your tickets."

JEFFREY KAYE: After a bus trip to Los Angels, the family was put aboard a train bound for Chihuahua, Mexico, where Acosta, a U.S.-born citizen, lived until she was a teenager.

MARIA OFELIA ACOSTA: It was kind of embarrassing, you know, when they throw you out. I mean, it's nothing to brag about.

JEFFREY KAYE: The expulsions are chronicled in the book "Decade of Betrayal," by California state university professors Raymond Rodriquez and Francisco Balderrama. The authors document how, during the Depression, upwards of a million people-- more than half of them U.S. Citizens-- were sent to Mexico. The goal was to reduce welfare rolls and cut down on competition for jobs. The program, they say, was also driven by racism.

FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA, Historian: The idea that a Mexican is a Mexican, that they are foreign, that they are not part of this country even though, "they have lived here, they have worked here, they've build lives here. They're still not part of this country." There is no distinction made in terms of legal residence, no distinction made in terms of "those that are U.S. citizens, those that are American citizens of Mexican descent." No distinction made.

JEFFREY KAYE: The program largely ended with World War II, when a labor-hungry U.S. needed as many workers as it could find. Acosta eventually returned to the U.S., finding work as a seamstress in L.A. Now, efforts are underway in California to seek justice for the victims of the repatriation program.

SPOKESMAN: This morning, we are going to be examining a tragic part of United States history.

JEFFREY KAYE: California Democratic State Senator Joseph Dunn has conducted an investigation and held hearings in which people exiled to Mexico told their stories.

EMILIA CASTANEDA: I was frightened. I had never been to Mexico. We left with just one large trunk full of belongings in 1935. No furniture, a few medical utensils, a small ceramic pitcher, because it reminded me of my mother.

JOSEPH DUNN: What our intent is is to have both the federal government and the state of California create commissions to investigate the deportation program beyond what our resources allowed us to do, to really find out exactly who was involved, where the critical decisions were made, why they were made.

JEFFREY KAYE: So-called repatriation trains departed regularly from Los Angels. The deportations took place with the cooperation of Mexican authorities, who saw resettling Mexicans and Mexican Americans as a national obligation. Train departures were widely publicized in the city's English and Spanish language press.

FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA: The scene was primarily that of women and children crying. Men being very, very pensive about what was to happen to them. The trains were locked because there were cases early in the period in which some of the repatriates at the very end would try to escape.

JEFFREY KAYE: In 1931, at La Placita Plaza in downtown Los Angels, one roundup turned violent. Federal agents beat up men and women and drove them into vans. But more often, city and county officials used persuasion, not Billy clubs, to encourage people to cross the border, even enlisting social workers in the effort.

FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA: The social workers with their caseload would go to individual families, knock on the door, tell Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez, "We think that you've been on relief for quite a long time. We think that you would be better off among your own people. We think you would be better off in Mexico."

JEFFREY KAYE: Such arguments resonated with many people who, confronted with America's bleak economic situation, went willingly to Mexico to find a better life. But once they arrived in Mexico, life for many exiles often got worse. That was the case with Acosta's family.

MARIA OFELIA ACOSTA: It was a setback for us, because I could have gone to school. My family could have gone to school-- my brothers, my sisters, you know, we could have had a better life here. But throwing us over, we didn't go to school there, we didn't go to school here, so... I don't know, it's kind of... they mess it up.

JEFFREY KAYE: Although expulsions occurred across the country, Los Angels was the epicenter of the program. Municipal and county authorities, with the assistance of business leaders, established homegrown immigration departments to oversee the deportations.

FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA: Here in L.A. County, they set up a desk called deportation, and that type of thinking then led federal authorities to say, "hey, let L.A. County operate like a sovereign nation; let L.A. County organize trainloads of individuals and ship them to the border; let them go ahead and deport people, which is a function of the federal government."

JEFFREY KAYE: State Senator Dunn is particularly troubled by what he says are documents showing that local governments such as Los Angels County might have actually profited from the repatriations.

FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA: For families that owned homes, L.A. County engaged in the following program: Once the family was illegally deported, they would put a lien on that house for the cost of the transportation. Say a whole family was deported to Mexico, that might be $ 50. Since the family was gone, there was no one there to pay off that lien, they would foreclose the lien, and the county would take possession of that home, turn around and sell it for fair market value and pocket the cash.

JEFFREY KAYE: To correct these injustices, Dunn says California should establish a financial compensation program for deportation victims. Similar reparations were paid to Japanese Americans interned during World War II.

JOSEPH DUNN: I wish we could turn the clock back and give them their lives back. We can't. The only way to make amends is through an exchange of financial... of money. It's gross, but it is the way our system is built.

JEFFREY KAYE: Dunn's efforts have been supported by many of his fellow Democrats in the state legislature, as well as by California's Spanish language press, which has closely covered the hearings. Opponents of Dunn's idea argue that California, mired in a multibillion dollar deficit, can't afford to pay people for long-ago wrongs. More philosophically, others argue that there are limits when it comes to correcting the injustices of the past.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: We try to go back and rectify everything in the past, but the problem with that is there is no end to it.

JEFFREY KAYE: Conservative social critic Victor Davis Hanson writes about history and culture from his farm near Fresno.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The wounds of the past are something that should be talked about, they are something that should be recognized-- that's the job of historians, that's the job of journalists, that's the job of the public, that's the job of public debate-- but if you think you are going to take the coercive power of the government to go back and investigate something and then punish people in the present, it is not going to work.

JEFFREY KAYE: But some victims aren't waiting for the government's help. They recently filed a class action lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages from the state of California, as well as L.A. City, County, and the Chamber of Commerce for their roles in the repatriation program. Acosta is ambivalent about such actions.

MARIA OFELIA ACOSTA: A lot of people say, "hey what do you want now? You going to sue?" I say, you know, no money can repay that. The years that you wasted your life, I mean.

JEFFREY KAYE: More than money or apologies, Acosta simply wants people to know about how her country, battered by economic hardships long ago, expelled many of its own citizens.

FOCUS FLU SEASON

RAY SUAREZ: In recent days, four children in Colorado have died of the flu, and other states, including Texas and Nevada, have reported an unusually high number of cases this early in the flu season. All this has prompted strong warnings from health officials. Yesterday, Jeffrey Brown talked with Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

JEFFREY BROWN: Dr. Julie Gerberding, welcome.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: You recently put out a national warning that the flu season could be much worse than usual, why, what are you seeing?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Well, we're seeing two things, one is the season is off to a rapid start this year. We already have flu activity in 39 states and we have got two states, Texas and Nevada, where there is widespread involvement. But in addition we're seeing that there is a strain of flu -- the H3M2 strain -- that isn't in this year's vaccine. The vaccine probably will offer protection against this strain, but it may not be as good as we would like it to be. So we're encouraging everyone to get their flu shot now.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, gets go back and break this down a little bit. Do we know why it's hitting earlier than normal?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: You know, it's very difficult from year to year to predict how the season will unfold. It's not unusual to get off to an early start. And sometimes the peak happens as early as December, but the signs this year suggest that we are seeing more cases in more states than would be typical and that's a hint that we better get on the ball and get the vaccine out there and get people immunized.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about why it would be especially bad in particular places, Colorado, Texas, a number of other states?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: You know, we don't really know why it starts in one place and seems to spread more effectively, but we can do know that the most important thing is to get the population vaccinated because that can really dampen an outbreak in any particular jurisdiction.

RAY SUAREZ:: A number of the recently reported deaths in Colorado have been young children. Who is most at risk?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Well, everyone is at risk for flu but the people who are at risk for the serious complications or death are usually the older people, especially people over age 65 -- people who have any chronic medical condition and people young children between the ages of six and twenty-three months who are often hospitalized for the complications of flu. So those are the people that we are especially concerned about flu complications in.

RAY SUAREZ: This new recommendation for the young children jumped out at me. Why, why the new recommendation for children? I think you said between six months and 23 months?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Yes. CDC has been working with others to evaluate the benefits from flu vaccine, and one of the things we have learned is that if children in that age group do receive the vaccine, they're much less likely to be hospitalized, and so the main reason for encouraging immunization in that age group is to keep those kids out of the hospital.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's go back to the other issue you raised which was about the strain that seems to have developed or appeared that was not planned for. Explain that.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Well, you know, the key to understanding flu is that it's constantly evolving. That's why we have to get a flu shot every year, and the strain that was in the vaccine is an H3M2 strain along with two other strains. It's a H3M2 strain called H3M2- Panama. That strain is one that can cause severe disease, but it has evolved a little bit and now is more like the strain H3M2-Fujian so the vaccine has panama, the strain that seems to be causing an increasing number of cases this is year is Fujian and there is not a perfect match between what's in the vaccine and what people are exposed to. We know from the laboratory that there will be some cross protection between these two strains, but it might not be optimal. We also know from past experience that when we see the situation where the vaccine strain isn't a perfect match we still get protection from the flu vaccine but we won't know until the season unfolds how good the protection really is.

JEFFREY BROWN: But right now...

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: It's also important that there are other viruses out there, other flu viruses that are in the vaccine and people need to get the vaccine because it will help protect them.

JEFFREY BROWN: So right now your recommendation is that the vaccine out there is still going to help against this other strain?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: That's our expectation based on experience in the laboratory samples, so we are not pessimistic about the effectiveness of the vaccine. We just are a little worried because the season is getting off to such a rapid start. And it's very important that people recognize this year we have enough vaccine to go around -- for doctors and nurses we are also -- have improved the reimbursement rates so cost should not be an issue and people just need to get out there now and get this flu shot.

JEFFREY BROWN: I also understand that this year's strains are known to be especially virulent from past experience, is that a concern?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Again, this H3M2 strain that we're seeing right now just traditionally is sometimes more likely to be associated with hospitalization or death. So because it can be slightly more severe, sometimes very much more severe, we're on the lookout for more flu complications, given that this strain is what we're seeing predominantly in the United States right now.

JEFFREY BROWN: So in addition to getting the vaccine are there other things people should do at this point?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Well, one thing that would help is that when people see their clinicians they should ask their clinician if they have had the vaccine, because we really need to make sure that health care workers are protected. Flu can spread in hospital settings or other health care environments, and when health care workers come in contact with people who have the flu, they can serve as mechanisms for transmitting it. So not only do we want the patients and the people at risk for influenza to be vaccinated but we want to be especially emphatic that health care workers get protected this year and patients can help with us that.

RAY SUAREZ: Okay, Dr. Julie Gerberding of the CDC, thank you very much.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Thank you.

FOCUS THE JAZZ SINGERS

RAY SUAREZ: Now, new life for jazz singers. Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: In a Los Angels recording studio, Tierney Sutton got together recently with instrumentalists and a producer to craft a new album of songs she hoped would be a breakthrough to jazz stardom. (Singing) In a summer jazz camp near Chicago, students who grew up immersed in rock 'n' roll worked to master a singing style more reminiscent of vocalists who were household names before most of them were born. Together, they're evidence that one of the oldest traditions in American music is showing new signs of vitality and life: Jazz singing. (Singing) Though some observers say jazz is losing its audience, you'd never know it from the vocal section at the music store. Star jazz performers like Diana Krall, Norah Jones, and Jane Monheit are being promoted with big budgets and major marketing pizzazz. Their records are selling in numbers once associated only with major pop artists. As the trend has grown, discs by older jazz singers have begun sharing space with up-and-coming artists who have not yet become household names. So rising professionals like Tierney Sutton have a dual mission: Enlarge their own audiences while also introducing jazz singing to those who aren't familiar with it. She believes the time is right to do both, and hopes her new album, "Dancing in the Dark," will win her a new level of popularity with the growing audience for vocal jazz. She says Diana Krall, whose albums have won four Grammys and sold in the millions, helped create that new audience.

TIERNEY SUTTON: She's a delightful singer and a very good pianist, and for people in jazz and jazz fans it's very thrilling to see more people hearing these great tunes and hearing this music. At the same time, how she was marketed, which was as a beautiful woman much in the same way that pop singing is marketed, made a shift in how, I think, the record business saw the potential of how you market jazz singers. (Borla singing "Very Early")

SPENCER MICHELS: The singer Janice Borla, who runs the only jazz camp devoted to solo jazz singing, also focuses on building an audience as much as on building singers. She started her camp in North Central College in the Naperville, Illinois, long before Monheit, Krall and Jones became popular. Now the camp has a waiting list. Six evening concerts by the faculty are completely sold out in advance. Borla says there is a reason jazz singers are finding an audience again.

JANICE BORLA: I think the American public is starved for singers. I think that the reason why there seems to be a great popularity of jazz singers right now is that they're singing in a manner that's very accessible to a broad general taste, regardless of your knowledge of jazz, and I think the American audience is very grateful to have some singers back on the scene.

SPENCER MICHELS: These students want to be part of the next generation of singers, but there's lots to learn. The teachers knew they couldn't teach everything in only five days of camp, so they encourage students to react to what others were doing at the moment they did it. Making up nonsense syllables and keeping the rhythm and melody is called "scat singing." Even better than any explanation was the example of precise interaction between faculty members Floyd Standifer and Judy Niemack in concert. ( Jazz scatting )

FLOYD STANDIFER: What I'm pointing out to you now is...

SPENCER MICHELS: 74-year-old Standifer is also the camp's one-man history department. He began his career playing with Billie Holiday. He introduces students to new subtleties in singers they are already familiar with.

FLOYD STANDIFER: Sarah Vaughan would become a benchmark-- she would become the standard by which jazz singers between Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald, Anita Oday maybe, these are the people who set the mark.

SPENCER MICHELS: This is history with a beat. Standifer says it's important to for singers to learn about the rich history of jazz singing.

FLOYD STANDIFER: The people who scat sing now are doing no more nor no less than what Louis Armstrong would have been doing or what Bing Crosby would have been doing. ( Demonstrates jazz scatting ) Louis might have done something like that. Now you may get somebody standing onstage talking about (demonstrates jazz scatting) now you say, "what does that mean?" To somebody, that's the same as "Stardust".

SPENCER MICHELS: But it sure doesn't sound like "Stardust."

FLOYD STANDIFER: No, but it gets the same job done.

SPENCER MICHELS: These days, Tierney Sutton is trying to get the job done her way, but she recognizes the debt she owes the jazz greats of the past. Her latest album is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, who, for her, was an acquired taste. She had to do a lot of listening before she understood her legendary predecessor and was ready to pay tribute. But when she assembled with the other musicians in the studio, it was time to forget the research and react to what others were doing. Improvise. (Sutton singing "All The Way") Each tape received a lively critique during the playback

TIERNEY SUTTON: No, no, no, I think it's okay.

TIERNEY SUTTON: You take a bunch of people that have a common language and a common set of skills and then you bounce off of each other. And a lot of the great records and great improvisations that has happened in the history of jazz is because one musician had an idea and the other musician heard that idea and reacted to it.

SPENCER MICHELS: Tierney Sutton hopes her next album, due out in February, will win more converts to vocal jazz and will break the 100,000 sales mark for her, for the first time.

ESSAY THINK SMALL

RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, some Thanksgiving thoughts from essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Most of one's life is bracketed between the news in the morning and the news in the evening, and usually the news is bad: A war continues here, another begins there. The world's menacing faces vow to kill you. In this place a flood, in this place an earthquake. And, in local news, a tenement fire destroys a family of five or nine. And a desperate man opens fire on his fellow office workers. One starts the day with news of this terrorist attack or that retaliation. One ends the day with similar reports. It's odd-- life book-ended by so much misery, and in between, during the day, one meets a friend for lunch or buys a pair of shoes or pays the electric bill or makeslove. Here's a question for Thanksgiving Day: Where do the miseries of the outer world and the quieter concerns of the personal life connect? Where do you fit in? In the middle of the day, you're safe, busy, prosperous, middle- of-the American day, do you hear the gun-fire in Iraq, or in East Timor, Burundi, or Afghanistan? Take your walk along your avenue. What if, instead of the beat of the ordinary street noise around you, you heard the rockets go off and the shouts for help? What, in other words, if you did not keep the news of misery of your consciousness in the hours between the morning news and the evening news, but you had to live with it without an intermission? If that were so, one would be made terribly aware of how most of the world feels most of the time, how the ordinary Sudanese deals with day to day chaos and destruction. Life in war zones abroad consists of a series of alarms: Look here, look there, don't go there. The same applies for the war zones at home. Between the beginning of an inner-city block and the far corner, one may be raped, beaten, shot. No intermission in the war zones. If the awareness of the bad news places were continual, it would certainly shake up one's day. Not to worry. You don't live in Baghdad, or in South Central L.A. This is just a hypothesis. And yet Americans, as lucky as we usually are, do carry a dim consciousness of the suffering world in the time between the morning news and evening news: An echo of a war, a reverberation of suffering, sorrow in the back theatres of the mind. It is this, added to the tensions wrought by Sept. 11, 2001, that bring down the spirit. What use, then, should one make of one's time? I say, think small. Concentrate on the things easily done, the life within one's reach. The miseries of the morning and the evening are overwhelming. So reduce them to control. Work in a homeless shelter. Help in a soup kitchen. Volunteer for a humanitarian organization. Read to the blind. Help out in a school. While the wars thud in the morning and the evening, in the in-between time, give a hand. And the Thanksgiving connection? Simple: Be grateful that one is able to offer some help in a world that cries out to you, to me, in the distance, every morning, every evening. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of the day. President Bush stunned U.S. Army troops in Baghdad by showing up for their Thanksgiving dinner. He made a secret flight from Crawford, Texas. Also in Iraq, a U.S. Military convoy came under attack. Two trucks were disabled and looted and an Iraqi police sergeant was shot to death. And a cease-fire along the 700- mile border between India and Pakistan held fast despite new violence in Kashmir. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I'm Ray Suarez. Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you and good night.